Sunday, 2nd of October, 2011

Long weekend! Daylight savings! So much joy.
I have the kids from the the theatrical piece Nothing but a Raucous Instrument coming to chat about their show…
LISTEN AGAIN folks, you know you want to. Link at bottom, podcast URL should still work, and FBi’s On Demand streaming certainly does!

Started, though, with a track from new Dutch singer-songwriter Laura Arkana, collaborating with Peter Broderick. I played this last week but it’s so beautiful I had to play it again!

Then we chatted with Lachlan Hughes and Ivan Cheng from Volta Collective about their chamber operetta Nothing but a Raucous Instrument which they’re putting on this week. See it from Wednesday the 5th to Saturday the 8th (this week) at TAP Gallery in Darlinghurst — modern composition and experimental theatre meet in a story of madrigals and murder…

And then we’re into one of two big compilations this week [adult swim]‘s [unclassified]. It’s not so unclassified really — it’s mostly dubstep and post-dubstep. One of many highlights is dubstep stalwart Pinch — minimal head-nodding goodness.

And thence we follow the bass, into the amazing beatless Bass music of Sun Hammer, who we’ve heard before on the show. This time it’s from SEQUENCE1, a 42-track download album put together by the excellent music blog Future Sequence. It features lots of great drone and post-classical and folktronica, and its fair share also of wonky beats and suchlike. Very fine.
Representing the drone and field recordings side of things is Aussie ex-pat Robert Curgenven.

The new pimmon album The Oansome Orbit, as discussed last week, is a true gem, some of the best work he’s ever done, and I’m sure it’ll remain on these playlists, every week or two for a while yet. Tonight we heard the lovely opening track.

I love compilations for introducing me to new artists as well as potentially bringing me exclusive tracks from artists I love. Future Sequence here bring us Dublin’s Zvuku, whose strings and glitchy drones are very welcome round these parts.

Telafonica are continuing their schedule of releasing remix singles from their album before the album of non-remixed tracks, and “The Unravelling Man” is the second in the list. St Jambience does a nice experimental chopped-up take, while later Actual Russian Brides keep it bassy and beaty.

In between, we heard two tracks from the new EP by Melbourne’s Paul Heslin, made up of non-musical sounds à la Matmos. Nicely done.

Well, speaking of remixes, the last of the RadioheadKing of Limbs remix EPs is out, and as well as Jamie xx‘s take, there’s a very danceable (not surprisingly) SBTRKT remix in there.
For my next segue it was necessary to play Busdriver‘s “Bloomberg”, his take on “Bloom” from the Radiohead album, rapping over a loop of the groove and bassline to impressive effect. But that was just to take us into his new single, which is a wobbling-bass-heavy destruction of all that is holy – that’s right, Animal Collective‘s “Leaf House”. It’s pretty awesome, actually, once you get over the WTF factor.

It’s surprising to find Future Sequence interested in beats as well as drones, ambience and glitches, but there you go. Here we have some very nice wonky hip-hop of a sort from Sun Glitters. And back with [adult swim], we have a hazy dream of ’90s hardcore and idm from Zomby – wonderful.

Oh, speaking of ’90s hardcore and idm, the new Plaid album should be out in physical form now, and what a delight it is, as I tried to express in my recent review for Cyclic Defrost. In between a dubstep-influenced track and the gorgeous closer (that piano coda is just perfect), we heard a little dizzy drum’n’bass tune from their first Warp album not for threes.

Back with ex-pat New Zealanders Kompost, we had two excellent tracks from their Bandcamp showcasing some beats and some analogue synths. In between, Perth’s now-defunct Snowman give us some epic shoegaze.

The new Feist album is probably her most pop yet, which is not a bad thing of course, but I’m glad there’s something as edgy as “A Commotion” on there so I can fit it into my playlist. I first came across her on some early albums by (Chilly) Gonzales and got to see her performing with her when he toured in probably about 2003. Our Gonzo (aka Jason Beck) has a bit of a bee in his bonnet about his much-loved Solo Piano album, which critics tend to take more seriously than this flamboyant pop persona. Fair enough; I love that stuff, but I do also appreciate his sense of humour, his lyrical playfulness, and his musical adventurousness. The last track on his new “orchestral rap” album is cute, though, with its cod-Satie piano and rap about how one day he’ll “Shut Up And Play The Piano”, like everybody wants him to do.

UFog face part timer has a rather different take on piano, sampling individual chords for a dreamy piece of folktronica. On the other track I played tonight (both available from his new(ish) Bandcamp), we hear what I assume are his own vocals for once. Lovely!

One of the last two of Preservation‘s Circa series of limited CD releases is from US artist Nickolas Mohanna, who fits in the synthesiser revival of the last few years rather splendidly. Quality stuff.

And finishing up, the first Boxcutter track I’ve liked unreservedly for some time. It’s melodic and dubsteppy.

Labels and artists!

email: utilityfog at frogworth dot com
Utility Fog teeters on the cusp between acoustic and electronic, organic and digital. Constantly changing and rearranging, this aural cloud of nanotech consumes genres and spits them out in new forms. Whether cataloguing the jungle resurgence, tracking the ups and downs of noise and drone, or unearthing the remnants of glitch and folktronica, all is contextualised within artist & genre histories for a fulfilling sonic journey.
Since all these genre names are already pretty ridiculous, we thought we'd coin a new one. So "postfolkrocktronica" it is. Wear it.